Worst Foot Forward
by Basmathgirl
Summary: Crowley has been sent by downstairs to waylay the "most important woman in the universe" from her destiny, but the trouble is, he has also promised Aziraphale to help him too.


**Disclaimer:** all I own is an Amazon Prime account and my BBC-funding TV licence.  
**A/N:** written for **kind Anon** & **tatennant1997** on Tumblr.

* * *

**Worst Step Forward**

.

Go up and disrupt things a little, they had ordered. In particular, his latest instructions were to do with a certain ginger haired temp in London. Not much of a geographical stretch for Crowley. Should be able to get it over and done with quite quickly and be back home in time to interrogate his plant collection. But first, he was due to have some tea with Aziraphale, in his Soho bookshop.

"Doing anything interesting next?" Aziraphale wondered as he sipped from his best china tea service.

Could he offload this one onto him, Crowley pondered. "Not much. Just a local office temp I have to waylay for a while."

"Funnily enough, I have an important destiny to confirm," Aziraphale mentioned, "for someone over in Chiswick."

"Silly of us both doing it," Crowley airily noted, baiting his trap.

"And we have that Kent businessman to prod in the right direction," Aziraphale stated. "Or wrong direction, in your case."

"If you say so." Crowley wrinkled his nose in disgust.

On the whole, businessmen were far too easy to lead astray. Hardly worth a mention, let alone a commendation. Not that Crowley was after the gongs; he just wanted to avoid being hauled in front of a disapproving committee again. And if that meant getting credit for something he quite surely didn't do, then he was game to try.

The question was: was he in the mood for something dead easy, or did he fancy a bit of a challenge? For hell's sake, Aziraphale could do with earning some Brownie points with Gabriel.

That made up his mind. "I'll tell you what, Angel. I'll take the temp."

"You will?" Aziraphale trilled in delight. "Then that's sorted. Can I tempt you to some cake? Well, you know what I mean," he floundered prettily.

Crowley merely smirked. He did indeed know, all too well.

* * *

It didn't take Crowley too long to find the Adipose Industries building or sweep through the doors as though he owned the place. All he had to do was find someone who looked as though they shouldn't be there.

Ew, people promoting slimming tablets. The whole ideal made Crowley cringe. What was wrong allowing gluttony take its toll. After all, Famine would love this gig,

"Hello. Can I help you?" a manicured receptionist suddenly asked him.

His judgemental gaze swept over her, noting that she must have dreamed being an air stewardess in her earlier days. "Yes. I'm here about a job."

Before he could say anymore, she interrupted him by stating, "Third floor. First desk on the right. You can't miss it. Just give her your name."

"Are you sure that applies to me?" he openly wondered.

"All the temps go there," she answered, and then turned to dismiss him.

All temps, eh? Then his luck might be in and he'd easily find his prey. With a vague nod of his head to denote any thanks, he headed towards the lift and the joys of the third floor.

* * *

A job! They'd given him a job. An armful of papers and everything. How disgusting!

The woman behind the desk, Gladys whatever-her-name-is, had even had the cheek to suggest he ditch the dark glasses. Ditching the prejudiced attitude would help people in general a lot more.

"My migraines," he had faintly answered, swiping a hand across his brow before ignoring the suggestion.

At least it had done the trick. All he had to do now was stop her oozing sympathy in his direction and stop proposing various treatments for him to try. As if he'd need to! But it did mean that every time she caught him doing absolutely no work as he sunned himself by the huge office windows, rubbing his forehead gained another fondly sympathetic smile.

He should have thought of that excuse decades ago, he realised. Especially as it came with offers of tea, and a fairly consistent stream of cake treats. Aziraphale would have loved it.

Another fairy cake seemed to be in the offing when a tall woman carefully approached him a few hours later. As he turned to resist the offer, he noted that she was glaring at him as though she was thoroughly miffed.

"You're here," she accused him, flicking her long ginger hair from her shoulders. "I've been looking everywhere for you."

"Erm." He considered how he should play this. "I've only been here a couple of hours."

"Hours," she repeated. "And you never bothered to tell me."

"Well, I didn't think…"

"That's exactly it," she interrupted his possible reply, pointing an irate digit at him. "You could have warned me you'd be in disguise. What are you aiming for? Gay hairdresser paying a social visit?"

"Pardon?!"

Ignoring his outburst, she continued, "Or is it one of those lunchtime appointments? Some sort of escort agency."

"Madam, I think you…"

"And don't give me all that 'I don't remember you' crap," she warned with a sneer. "We may not have had long together but people tend to remember weddings; especially ones that go THAT wrong." She would have said more but felt it best not to bring up the alien element of her aborted wedding attempt.

For his part, Crowley stood gaping like a landed fish. Wedding? Okay, he could easily acknowledge that a wedding that involved him would go wrong, but… wedding! When had he ever attempted to go through with a wedding? Been involved in a few going astray. Of course, he had. It was only natural. All in a day's work, and all that; but this was a first. He'd never had a woman attack him as though he'd actually married her and then waltzed off. Sauntered, probably. That seemed fair. Sauntering was a strong personality trait of his. He'd almost insisted on it.

"When was this wedding exactly?" he tried asking.

"As if you don't know," she mocked him.

Which almost hurt, because he actually didn't know. Not knowing was hugely frustrating. "Pretend I don't, for a second," he suggested.

"Look, this isn't funny," she growled. "You spent far too much time peeping down my wedding dress to forget it ever happened."

"I think you have the wrong person."

In answer, she lunged forward and grabbed his arm. "Is this a joke to you? Do that again and I'll remind you how it felt to get my hand across your face." Then just as suddenly as it had appeared, her bluster deflated, and her expression fell. "I thought you liked me," she near whispered. "Enough to still want me to travel with you but I obviously thought wrong."

"Donna! What are you doing with him over there?" some woman called across to her. "Get back to work!"

"Yes. Sorry," she automatically apologised.

But the name helped him enormously. "Donna? As in 'Donna Noble'?" he questioned. If he was right, he had found the 'most important woman in the universe' and already accomplished the vast majority of his task.

She scowled. "Yes. That's me. Had you miraculously forgotten it?"

"Let's not bring miracles into this." He frowned in disgust. Even the word left a bitter taste in his mouth. "You have a destiny to fulfil."

To his surprise, she immediately went contrite. "Yeah, I know. I _said_ I was going to go walk in the dust, explore new stuff, see the world, but it didn't happen. Not quite as I expected. I'll tell you about it later. What I want to know is: why the weird getup?"

Crowley looked down at his clothing in confusion. "Weird?" Did he really look like a witch? He thought the look was something else entirely. "I rather like it."

"It's certainly different, I'll give it that," she sort of agreed; and sort of didn't. "Why that particular disguise? It's not your usual office wear."

"I don't normally work in an office," he corrected.

"Okay, I got the word wrong. It's not one's usual office wear," she amended. "Your suit would have been better."

"My suit?" he repeated in confusion. He then flinched as she thrust out a hand to test the temperature of his forehead. "What are you doing?"

"I'm waiting for a bus," she snarked. "What do you think I'm doing? You're acting all weird and I'm seeing if you've got a fever. Although I've no idea what your normal temperature should be since you're generally cold."

She obviously knew him quite well, he had to concede. Shame he didn't know her in return. Not that he tended to get to know women quite well, if at all. "I'm naturally that way."

"So you said before," she replied, and gave him an encouraging smile. "All part of being from…" She then cautiously looked round to see if anyone was paying attention, and faintly pointed upwards. "…up there," she quietly finished.

Looking up, he wondered why that had been the direction. Had she known him longer than he thought? "How far back do you know?"

"Back to the very beginning," she confidently answered, convinced that he was testing her now. "When the earth was formed."

Okay, all the way back, he silently noted. No wonder she was the most important woman in the universe. She obviously had lots to do. But there was one thing he was curious about. "You know all that about me and you don't mind I'm down here?"

"Of course not," she happily confirmed. "That's why I've been looking for you. To help. And not because I fancy you or some other daft notion you might have."

It hadn't even occurred to him. "Of course," he agreed. "Who needs that sort of thing anyway?"

"Exactly," she said with some relief. "So…. What do we do now?"

Ah. Time for him to put his and Aziraphale's plan into action and guide her in the right direction. "I want you to ignore the fact you've seen me here today and hide yourself away somewhere after the office is closed. There's an important meet and greet I want you to attend later but it's all a bit hush hush."

"I can do that," she confidently assured him.

"Mind that you aren't seen hiding by anyone," he cautioned, "and don't leave the building tonight until you get the signal."

"What signal?" she inevitably asked.

"You'll know, when you see it," he enigmatically proclaimed. "Off you go then, Donna Noble. Be magnificent."

She smiled back, happy to be near him. If he was saying that, he must have remembered her after all. "See you later. Oh, and Doctor…," she called out to him as she left, "I hope your eyes get better soon."

Now thoroughly puzzled, Crowley waved his thanks but wondered who exactly she thought he was. She had seen his eyes and not minded? That was rare. Not even a wince.

Perhaps Aziraphale knew more about this Doctor she'd mentioned? It would give him an excellent reason to visit at this hour of the day.

Now pleased with himself, Crowley set off to do just that.


End file.
